If Cleary can come out and prove he has recovered from his knee injury and play well, I would put him on the third line, problem is we have a lot of talent and no where to put it all. If Cleary plays the way he did last year he is not very useful to us, that is why I did not include him. Cleary a few years back was good, but not for a little while, but hey here is to hoping I am wrong.

The guy was hurt all season long, it's not like he underperformed. I find it remarkable that anyone would suggest that a VERY important part of this team would need to prove himself after gutting out an entire season with injury. Certainly few would have suggested that about Kronwall or Franzen when they both hardly played during the 09-10 season.

GMRwings: "Well, in other civilized countries, 16 years old isn't considered underage. For instance, I believe the age of consent is 16 in Canada. There's some US states where it's 16 as well.

The guy was hurt all season long, it's not like he underperformed. I find it remarkable that anyone would suggest that a VERY important part of this team would need to prove himself after gutting out an entire season with injury. Certainly few would have suggested that about Kronwall or Franzen when they both hardly played during the 09-10 season.

Anyone who'd scratch Cleary is probably also scratching their neck like Tyrone Biggums

First of all, you have some good information here, but I don't like half of it lol. Let me explain why;

Bertuzzi is way too slow now to be a top-6 and does not put up the numbers anymore either.

Cleary should never be in the top-6

Nyquist played phenominal on a line with Datsyuk last year (they have great chemistry so put the young kid there to learn from the best)

Zetterberg has 5 goals and 2 assists in two games in the swiss league, and brunner has assisted on 4 of those goals. They have great chemistry and are tearing it up out there.

So my lines would be:

Franz~Dats~Nyquist

Flip~Z~Brunner

Miller~Helm~Sammy

Bert~Abby~Tootoo

Kronwall~White

Ericsson~Smith

Quincey~Colaiacovo~Kindl(healthy scratch)

Ok this is a "line shuffling" thread, all I suggested was that Bert, Cleary, Sammy, Nyquist, and Brunner, are those guys that you can shuffle in and out of the top 6. Nyquist and Brunner are great but they are not going to play every game in the top 6 their first year, you'll see Sammy, Cleary, and Tuzzi in there when things need to be changed up. They are not the premier top 6ers but they aren't liabilities either.

The guy was hurt all season long, it's not like he underperformed. I find it remarkable that anyone would suggest that a VERY important part of this team would need to prove himself after gutting out an entire season with injury. Certainly few would have suggested that about Kronwall or Franzen when they both hardly played during the 09-10 season.

It's not about "proving himself", it's about proving he is injury free and capable at playing at the same level he once was. Just because he played all season injured doesn't necessarily mean he will be good again once he is healed. For all we know he may have caused permanent damage to his knee playing on it all year while it was injured. All I am saying is if he proves he is healthy and playing 100% or close to it, he can be on the lineup this year, if I were Babcock and felt he was underperforming in training camp, he would be a healthy scratch, or maybe a 4th liner.

Hmm not bad, but you're missing Miller in there, but I like the overall look of those lines, I would prefer to pair smith with someone who doesn't miss a lot of games like Colaiacovo does, he is young and needs a good reliable pairing to help him grow. That is why I paired him with Ericsson, he has gotten much better over the last couple years, and was better than Stuart and the end of last season. I think he also a lot less injury prone. Just my humble opinion though.